A Year in the Life
by BohoJules
Summary: A short piece of drabble about measuring a year, and the time you have left.


**Title**: A Year in the Life

**Author**: BohoJules

**Rating**: T

**Genre**: General/Angst

**Summary**: A short piece of drabble about measuring a year, and the time you have left.

**Notes**: Really. Short. Drabble.

A Year in the Life

When the HIV test came back positive, the man in the lab coat would sit you down, give you the pamphlets and prescriptions, and tell you that you had only two years left to live. That was a year ago for me, cutting my life expectancy in half. According to all the scientists and doctors, I had one year to live, one year try to fit in a lifetime's worth of living.

One year... I could count the number on one hand. Barely any time at all, really, one year. One year ago, I was healthy with my whole life ahead of me. Hell, I had known Mark for going on twelve years now. One year was nothing. One year was not enough time to do anything worthwhile, much less everything I hoped for. I was twenty-six – I wanted to see the world, to get a real job, maybe get married. Not now, of course, but I didn't have much time left. Just one year. One fucking year...

Twelve months... Twelve more times of filling the damned prescriptions, twelve more times of heading down to the clinic, ignoring the stares of the passersby that were filled with disdain, the eyes that glared, "queer," "junkie," or "gigolo," or the eyes that were so full of pity I almost hated them more. I did not need their pity, did not want their sad eyes that watched me slink past, almost as if they knew the man they saw was already dead. I wasn't, not yet, but I would be in twelve months...

Fifty-two weeks... Fifty-two more days of waking up hating Monday mornings with a fierce passion for no logical reason other than I had always hated Mondays. Fifty-two more days of sitting with Mark and reading the Sunday paper of a mug of coffee, discussing the world and laughing over the comics, which we still found funny, despite our age and our cynicism. Fifty-two more Thursday brunches with Collins and the girls down at the Life. A large number, but still measurable, fifty-two...

Three hundred and sixty five days... Three-hundred and sixty five more bowls of Captain Crunch for breakfast, of strong coffee that would wake the dead (Mark always got up first, so we drank coffee the way he liked it), or sunsets that we could barely see because of the glare of the city or the smoke in the air. Three hundred and sixty five more days of AZT, of New York, and of this goddamned loft. A large number, large enough to seem like much longer, three hundred and sixty five...

Eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours... A very large number, really. Why was it that, when a year was broken into each individual hour, when you lived each hour as its own, a year suddenly had a number above eight thousand applied to it? Made is seem like an actual amount of time, and made it very hard to sulk away the time as I had been. I had eight thousand – more than that, actually – measures of time to live. Eight thousand measures to call my own, to do everything I had wanted to do in. It was bound to be long, measures of eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty...

Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand, six hundred fucking minutes... Seems like nearly forever when looked at that way. Hell, if I lived every minute as it came, I was nearly immortal. That thought really puts a damper on a foul mood, doesn't it? How could I mope, how could I waste even one of those five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes? Each one was precious, and each one was mine, to _live._ Hell, I had plenty of time left; time enough to live, if I lived each moment as if it were the last. Isn't that what Angel had tried to teach us?

Sure, I only had one year to be alive. But I also had twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty five days, eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours, and five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes to _live_.

One year.

Fin


End file.
